Wessler: Big flaws in formula for success

There’s so much wrong with the Illinois High School Association’s new “success formula” it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s start with the obvious.

If it’s such a great idea to make successful programs move up to a larger enrollment class for competition, shouldn’t it be an equally great idea to drop bad programs into smaller classes?

And why does the new rule apply only to powerful teams from schools without defined enrollment boundaries? Why is Joliet Catholic’s success in football somehow evil, but Monmouth’s success in boys golf is pure and holy?

Also, if a successful program eventually gets bumped up to the largest enrollment class and continues to dominate, shouldn’t it get kicked out of the IHSA? Dominance is dominance, after all. And if dominance via no boundaries is evil, why should even the largest schools with borders in this state be subjected to such domination? Why is that fair?

The biggest problem here is that there is no problem.

We’ve been hearing for years that private schools were winning “more than their fair share” of championships in some sports. But is that really a problem? Or is it prejudice? Or simple envy?

What is a “fair share,” by the way? And if private schools winning more than a fair share of titles is really a problem, shouldn’t public schools winning all the titles in other sports be considered a problem of equal concern?

Fact: Through the 2012-13 school year, private schools had won 36.7 percent of the state football championships.

Fact: Through the 2012-13 school year, public schools had won 100 percent of boys tennis championships and all but one boys swimming championship.

Where’s the problem?

I’ll tell you. People at certain public schools don’t like getting their butts kicked by certain Catholic schools in certain sports.

The IHSA is careful not to spell out “Catholic” or even “private” schools in its policies and by-laws. The root term is “non-boundary,” and it applies to public schools as well. Give the IHSA credit here. When the organization instituted the multiplier — a formula that multiplies a non-boundary school’s enrollment by 1.65 to justify placing that school in a competition class with larger schools — it spread the pain in a non-sectarian way.

But do you hear gripes about Normal U-High winning too much in boys golf, or about Chicago Simeon’s fourpeat in boys basketball?

Didn’t think so.

This is all about four schools. Joliet Catholic (13), Chicago Mount Carmel (12) and New Lenox Providence (7) each has won at least as many football championships as the most accomplished public schools. And Providence is joined by Lombard Montini, which has won five football titles, atop the wrestling world with 10 championships, the same number won by public Maywood Proviso East.

Page 2 of 2 - That’s it.

Four private schools, out of 800 IHSA members, are dominant in two boys sports. But no complaints from anywhere about far greater dominance by three public schools — Elmhurst York (28 cross country titles), Winnetka New Trier (22 swimming, 20 tennis), or Hinsdale Central (21 tennis, 17 swimming).

Here’s an inconvenient truth for the IHSA’s social engineers. As they have expanded enrollment classes and messed with multipliers, the share of state championships won by private schools has exploded.

Private schools won zero team wrestling championships in the single-class system, 34.8 percent during the two-class years. Since expansion to three classes, 60 percent of the wrestling titles have been won by privates. In boys golf, those numbers leaped from 2.6 percent to 25.7 to 44.4. Among boys sports, every time classes expanded, the share of team championships won by private schools also increased in baseball, cross country, football, soccer and track.

In other words, the folks who think there’s a problem are the ones who, along with their like-minded predecessors, imagined it and then created it.

And here’s the scary thought: Now that they’ve concocted a formula to penalize success, what will they think of next?

KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. He can be reached at kwessler@pjstar.com, or 686-3216. Read his Captain’s Blog at blogs.pjstar.com/wessler/. Follow him on Twitter @KirkWessler.